MSU President Richard Davenport has decided not to approve a suggested student fee increase that would support four athletic programs slated for elimination.

However, Davenport says the university will continue to support one of the four programs — women’s tennis. That’s to honor MSU’s commitment to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Women’s tennis is a championship NSIC sport. The other three — men’s tennis, women’s bowling and men’s swimming — are not.

Last week, 23 percent of the student body voted on the non-binding referendum to save four intercollegiate sports from elimination. The Free Press says a majority of those voting favored a fee increase.

One Comment

Are you kidding me? The students voted but one person makes the decision to overturn the vote? What country do we live in? Why would any of those students get out and vote for anything ever again? Nice message you are sending, Mr. Davenport!

It’s not the first time a student vote has been ignored in MN. I was at SCSU when 75% of students who voted wanted to maintain the quarter based system, instead of switching to semesters. That vote was a mere formality to make it look like the students were being given a voice. Sounds like the same thing happened here.

Sounds like the students have no say about their school’s policies or offerings. Why even have a student vote on anything related to student well-being or activities? If the students were willing to pay extra fees to keep these programs going then why override them?

Maybe it’s time for students to rise to the occasion like in times past and protest the ersatz faux administrations that treat students as business chattel! Just remember the more a school cuts from its programs evidentially the school’s reputation will surely suffer. If the students are willing to shoulder the added responsibilities to keeping programs going then what’s the problem in keep such going.

Good thing we didn’t follow in St.Cloud’s footsteps. President Davenport made a tough, but correct decision. Kids didn’t want to spend 2,000 to support all of our international students which is about 1 penny/credit but want to support 50 people with a 75 cent increase/credit. Plus the teams would have been up for elimination in three years.

I’m sure kato is ” FAT ” in middle management just like the u of m. A lot of these managers are nothing more than data entry jerks who are way overpaid. Students could do these jobs cheaper and probably better. Really stupid!!!